Inspired by Scott Hanselman’s enormous list of tools that he uses, used, or heard of once, here’s three comparatively tiny lists of tools I use every day. The first list is comprised of cross-platform software that I use on both OSX and Windows. The second is OSX-only software and the third is Windows-only software.

I don’t use Linux enough to have a set of tools I recommend. As I’m the only person on the planet to think that Unity is actually a small step in the right direction, even if it does need optimising, my opinion doesn’t count.

Cross-Platform

Sublime Text 2 - Without a doubt, the best text editor I’ve used on any platform.

DiffMerge and FileZilla make the list over other more advanced programs by virtue of being free and cross-platform. Mercurial triumphs over Git thanks to its first-rate Windows support and its spectacular command line UI. I recommend TortoiseHg for Windows as it is often handy to see at a glance if anything in a repository has changed without firing up PowerShell.

VMWare and VirtualBox both make the list because they have different strengths. VirtualBox is open source, free and cross-platform, but it makes no effort to integrate into the host operating system. VMWare Fusion’s full screen mode means I can three-finger-swipe to switch from OSX to Windows, which is almost magical.